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Whether you approve or strenuously disagree, we’ve had plentiful coverage of last month’s student protest. We have a clear idea of what happened and how the protesters – as well as the police – were treated. We’ve been given profiles of the protesters and interviews with several of them. We’ve heard discussions of their future plans and assessments of their style, strategy and success. These aspects may not have been objectively covered or even portrayed with balance but they were on offer in the media.

What we didn’t get is what we, the people – that is, the Indian nation – made of what happened. How do the people view the protesters? Their treatment? The response of the politicians? The silence of the top leadership? And, of course, the eventual outcome? In other words, we did not get surveys and polls that attempted to really find out how the Indian people responded to the events, statements, behaviour and developments of last month.

No doubt there were a couple of polls asking generic questions, such as ‘what is the most important electoral issue today?’ or ‘who will you vote for?’. But after July’s dramatic developments, these were meaningless – if not irrelevant – questions. We........

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